


It's Never Just Coffee

by GranolaSuite



Category: Benedict Cumberbatch - Fandom, British Actor RPF, Real Person Fiction
Genre: F/M, First Date, First Dates, First Kiss, Fluff, hand holding, happy feelings, it's all good
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-02
Updated: 2014-10-02
Packaged: 2018-02-19 14:20:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,470
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2391509
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GranolaSuite/pseuds/GranolaSuite
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A bit of a writing prompt brought on by a friends' course work. Just imagine yourself showing your favourite celeb (doesn't have to be BC) around your home town.</p>
            </blockquote>





	It's Never Just Coffee

He’s asked you to show him around your hometown and you look at him strangely. He doesn’t want the fancy lights and postcard pictures you can buy at any two-bit souvenir shop, he wants _your_ city, the one you grew up, the one you know, and all of your favourite places that come with it. Excitedly, you agree, surely this isn’t happening? So many times you’ve played this scenario in your head, fantasised about it and now you’re actually playing tour guide? Well, if he insists...

Your car is new, but nothing fancy, and he spends the first ten minutes going through your iPod playlist; some similarities, some differences, and some strange way out there choices, and he pokes fun at you for your audio book collection; he does, after all, narrate about 90% of them. Education, you remind him, it’s all education. Or was that research? Or science? Either way, you tell him to mind his own, lest you go through and find the most embarrassing song on _his_ iPod.

You insist that if he wants to see your Melbourne, he needs to start where everything began; your hometown. Late night traffic makes an easy drive of it, the orange lights of the freeway reflecting in the windscreen at regular, mathematical intervals. If you weren’t so buzzed by this, you’d be falling asleep to the rhythm of the lights, you normally do as a passenger.

Your kindergarten, and you sit in the flood of security lights clutching hot coffees while you laugh about the chicken called Henrietta, or the turtle someone decided needed to live in the sewer, never to be seen again, the feeling of paint with rocks in it; you can still feel its wet stickiness combined with gritty texture between your toes if you close your eyes.

Next up is your primary school; the gates are open and no security are around, so you head straight for your favourite place, the library; the musty smell of the books, and far too old carpet that you spent hours sitting on. Your teacher that could recite The Fantastic Mr Fox word for word without having to read the pages; your favourite book _The Witches_ that you would borrow at least once a month from the library, without shame or guilt; you still have a copy, you remind him, and his eyes dance and gleam as he watches you intently while you talk books.

That starts him talking about his favourites and now the two of you can’t stop, walking slowly around the school yard, bemoaning all the _completely good_ things that happened only _after_ you left. You watch on in awe as he talks passionately about his favourite books, and stories he hopes to one day read to his children and you can just imagine how lucky they would be to have a father do that. Your own father read to you constantly and you tell him his children will be very lucky to have him as a father. That’s the first time he kisses you, catching you off guard, a small laugh escaping your lips as you ask him for another one.

 On the way through to your high school you stop and sit outside the first house you remember living in, and you talk animatedly about all the kids that used to live in the area, pointing to houses and telling stories about broken arms, cuts and scratches, old pets and things you used to do outside with your dad. Of course, the garden looked nothing like this when you were a kid, it was properly manicured, and your Dalmatian never saw the front yard, lest he end up streets away.

Next up is high school which, of course, has also changed. He laughs at you for being one of those accelerated kids when he can’t add two numbers together in his head. He’s _terrible at maths_ he reminds you, and you remind him that’s not all bad because there’s probably things he can do that you can’t. You recount stories of breaking into the Principal’s office, extra lesson’s from university lecturers and being put into a special ‘stream’ for the bright kids and you use this as an opportunity to skite about national English competition results that placed you in some ridiculous quota like the top 10% of the country.

There’s talk about art classes, which you hated, and comments that it’s best left to the professionals and a hasty security guard shoos you out of the yards. Without a second thought, your hand is clasped within his and he’s running in a direction you know is the complete opposite to where you need to be. You delight in watching his curled hair bounce around wildly on the top of his head; you _know_ what that longer hair means, he laughs at you as you both collapse against the wire fence behind the bike racks.

The stupidity and adolescence of the situation makes you laugh; here you are, standing with him behind the bike racks of your high school. It was a place you’d never actually been when you were in school and now here you were. You mention this to him, out of breath from your quick jog and he tosses his empty coffee cup aside without apology and pulls you in for a second kiss. Not just any kiss, though, you _know_ he’s re-enacting _that_ one for you, and you give him a playful punch for being a complete shit.

Flashlight cuts through the darkness and now it’s your turn to grab his hand and pull him through an empty irrigation channel to safety; at least you know your way around the area. The laughing dies down and you catch your breath again before strolling towards your car as if nothing happened, while he enacts a ridiculous march next to you and you remind him he is most definitely not the Minister for Silly Walks.

He takes the drivers’ seat this time and spends the next thirty minutes trying his best to get you a speeding fine or, if not that, at least pulled up by the police. Neither option eventuates, and he gives up, heading back into a steady cruise and back towards Melbourne. You stop in at Footscray and give him a firsthand view of a completely multicultural town; art work, graffiti, cuisine, shopping and Olympic Donuts. Footscray is a special place, and has its own smell, you remind him as you walk through the streets together, probably not your best idea when the clock is nudging midnight but you show him where you worked, your first job and regale him with stories about broken lights, breaking into cars (your own of course) and best friends long since forgotten.

Promising to bring him back during the day to show him the markets he agrees and offers to show you around Piccadilly Circus if you’d ever like to do that. Of course you would and, with child like enthusiasm, you pinkie swear that it’ll happen. You walk across the train station platform you got mugged on, of all the places, in broad daylight and he bounces around you, fists up and ready for a fight.

Next is the back roads into Melbourne past the giant Ferris Wheel that’s broken more than it’s operational and in towards Lygon Street for coffee and ice-cream. It’s just gone midnight on a Friday night, of course the place will be open and it’ll be busy enough that he can slip right into the background unnoticed, and he does.

All too soon, your car is parked in the driveway of a five star hotel, you apologise for not making it to any of the art galleries or museum’s yet, but next time you promise, next time, you’ll be all over them. He loves that idea and insists you hand the keys to the valet and join him upstairs for a coffee. You _know_ that coffee doesn’t just mean coffee, but he insists while in ear shot of others that it’s just coffee, nothing more.

Walking through the lobby of this hotel in your best jeans and sneakers you look around and take everything in. It’s pleasant, but with an old world charm that makes you feel at home automatically. A quick wait and the elevator sounds its arrival on the ground floor and you step in, ladies first you’re told.

“So, when you’re not having coffee from overpriced cafes, what type do you drink?”

He looks over at you, bewildered, “Overpriced? That was cheap,”

“For some,” you tease as he kisses you again.

“Third one for luck,” his lips twitch up into a smirk.

“For luck?”

“Yeah, I’m pretty sure I don’t actually have any coffee upstairs,” he affirms, “Could be wrong,”

Coffee. It’s never _just_ coffee.

 


End file.
